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Yeah, I don't think ROW has this hidden premium 55" market that's just waiting for a product from LG to fill a niche than even Samsung -- with scores of TV models -- can't place a product in. This makes me decidedly less than sanguine about delivering 1+ million 55-inch 4K sets next year unless the pricing is pretty much "Wow!"

Well, if there is not a significant market in the ROW for premium 55" TVs selling for $2500, I think LG is going to be in trouble next year.

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I like when things play out as what I know tells me they would. So yeah, I do like that number. I wonder about how much volume they can squeeze out at it, as I say just above. That doesn't mean I don't believe the volume is substantial -- I'm sure it's quite substantial -- but if you think, "LG can sell 1 million TVs like that" I'm skeptical. That's 0.5% of all the TVs sold in the world. For one SKU* to do that (1) from LG (2) with what I suspect is fundamentally limited distribution based on price at $2500 (3) at the very, very top end of a category (4) in a size that's unlikely to attract top-end buyers in North America... It feels like a stretch.

* Going flat and curved or offering multiple designs of the same basic TV doesn't change the fact it's inherently one SKU.

What is your view on the rumored sales volume of 80K OLED TVs sold by LG in Q2 of this year? That would have to be almost all 55" (mainly 1080p with perhaps a sliver of 4K) at prices of $2500 (and some dipping closer to $2000, at least here in the US).

On an annual basis, that would amount to over 300,000, which would still be just a fraction of the 1.5M LG says they are aiming at (and have the installed capacity for) in 2016.

If this is going to go anywhere, I think we are going to see prices in the $2500 for 55" and $4000 for 65" by this holiday season (which sets the stage for pricing approaching the $2000 level for 55" and $3000-3500 level for 65" in 2016). That kind of aggressive cost/volume curve, coupled with an actual 77" OLED at prices undercutting the Sony 75X940C would start to have the feel of an initiative that might actually start breaking out into (premium TV) mass-market levels...

Anything less than that feels like another year of cautiously testing the waters...

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Yeah, that's ugly. I'd bet though the top end 55s are already SKUs that sell on the order of 100K units. I'm not sure protecting share there matters so long as there is product. And I'm skeptical Samsung doesn't have a price umbrella they can sneak under to allow them to go to $2000.

But this is a legitimate concern for them, I concur.

Samsung's low TV profitability is a reflection of their significant marketing investments while needing to compete with the Vizio's of the world (at least here in the U.S., at least until Vizio's IPO ).

But Samsung knows how to use their muscle, and if either LGs OLED I itiative or Vizio/Dolby's Vision/HDR initiative shows any signs of gaining momentum, you can bet your booties on a strong response from Samsung (meaning lower pricing in an attempt to keep the OLED wind out of LG's sails and/or the HDR wind out of Vizio's sails (or maybe better, sales ).

5-6 inch OLED not selling as well as 4.7-5.5 inch IPS or whatever iPhone 6 is using.

Well, if iPhone had OLED screens, I doubt it would sell a different number of units. But yes, overall OLED smartphones are hardly taken over the world at this point. I think people fail to appreciate this even though we talked about it last year that no one in industry thoughts OLED smartphones would take over...

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Originally Posted by fafrd

Well, if there is not a significant market in the ROW for premium 55" TVs selling for $2500, I think LG is going to be in trouble next year.

It will matter what "significant" looks like. I am just pretty skeptical they can sell 1M+ of those in a world with aggressive, better distributed competition for a size that will have almost no presence in North America.

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What is your view on the rumored sales volume of 80K OLED TVs sold by LG in Q2 of this year? That would have to be almost all 55" (mainly 1080p with perhaps a sliver of 4K) at prices of $2500 (and some dipping closer to $2000, at least here in the US).

There is doubtless some early adopter demand. That's helping move what they are moving. Also, the product has apparently "caught fire" in the home market of Korea. The question is can they, for example, 3x-4x sales in Korea next year at that size and similar pricing? I see no reason why they could.

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On an annual basis, that would amount to over 300,000, which would still be just a fraction of the 1.5M LG says they are aiming at (and have the installed capacity for) in 2016.

Right, so without another year of LCD price trimming and if we assume there is minimal early adopter bump, they could sell 300K 55" TVs with lower resolution (a feature that few buyers likely care about, but that becomes more important for marketing over time). So how does that get to 1M+ in the next year? At $2500 it can't.

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If this is going to go anywhere, I think we are going to see prices in the $2500 for 55" and $4000 for 65" by this holiday season (which sets the stage for pricing approaching the $2000 level for 55" and $3000-3500 level for 65" in 2016). That kind of aggressive cost/volume curve, coupled with an actual 77" OLED at prices undercutting the Sony 75X940C would start to have the feel of an initiative that might actually start breaking out into (premium TV) mass-market levels...

Anything less than that feels like another year of cautiously testing the waters...

So, it appears maybe there's a bit of a gap between your numbers and slacker's and I think it's important because for every $500, there are a lot more sales. But at the same time, I think LG calibrates after this holiday season. If they are seeing signs the $2500/$4000 demand keeps rising, they can ride out what they believe will be a 300K-unit Q4 (maybe more?) and approach their sales goals for 2016. Now, that ignores the huge seasonality in TV and so I remain that much more skeptical.

But I think we can all agree that anything above these prices is basic microscopic sales volume. That sort of sets the pricing at not more than $2500/$4000 in the important part of 2016 and there exists a more than real possibility we are looking at $2000/$3500 -- at least for the time LG wants to start moving 1.5M+ annual volumes.

I'd also point out that whatever the forecast is for 2017, it absolutely requires the lower price band as an opening offer. LG is not inventing millions of units at new demand in price bands where there essentially never has been that kind of demand and certainly there hasn't been any such volumes in the past decade.

This still feels like a very slow roll to me. The lack of capacity beyond the 1.5M+ volume that could fill unfilled demand at ostensibly better prices won't even be addressed in a meaningful way until the next year (given the time to commit, build and then -- as we've seen with M2 -- ramp up the facility). This is a very big window for competitors to understand where LG is going. And I still see no reason to believe that OLED will take 80-90% market share in any segment it's competing in. That's true even if it is priced dollar for dollar the same.

There is no difference in HDMI cables. If you can see the picture without visible dropouts or sparklies, the cable is working at 100%. No other cable will display a better version of that picture. You're simply wrong if you think there is a better digital cable than one that is already working. (Oh, and plasma didn't die because of logistics problems, nor does OLED ship in big boxes because it comes from Korea.)

Well, if iPhone had OLED screens, I doubt it would sell a different number of units. But yes, overall OLED smartphones are hardly taken over the world at this point. I think people fail to appreciate this even though we talked about it last year that no one in industry thoughts OLED smartphones would take over...
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There was huge pent up demand for a bigger iPhone; there is no huge pent up demand for an OLED iPhone. I don't think anybody can supply that much volume anyway.

I think where we may see OLED first is on the iPad, where the larger size allows better appreciation of the display. Volume is low enough to be possibly manageable, and Apple needs something to goose flagging sales.

So, it appears maybe there's a bit of a gap between your numbers and slacker's and I think it's important because for every $500, there are a lot more sales. But at the same time, I think LG calibrates after this holiday season. If they are seeing signs the $2500/$4000 demand keeps rising, they can ride out what they believe will be a 300K-unit Q4 (maybe more?) and approach their sales goals for 2016. Now, that ignores the huge seasonality in TV and so I remain that much more skeptical.

I believe this is spot on. There have been several references to 'profitability' being the gating factor on new investments in capacity, and I think it all amounts to testing the ASP levels needed to drive the M2 capacity this holiday season and then assessing whether the potential cost reductions achievable through the next steps in volume increase can get them to a position close to breaking even.

This year, they are selling below cost, but next year, I don't believe there is going to be continued willingness to do so unless they have confidence that they see light at the end of the tunnel...

In fairness to LG, it would be idiotic for them to hit the gas while the kinks are still being worked out. It's unfortunate the 65EG9690 launch was marred by this dark-edges non-uniformity issue, but they'd be in a world of hurt if they were cranking out 26,000 sheets a month with those defects instead of just 6000.

In the end, it will have been a full year to get M2 phase 1 up and running smoothly. Hopefully the move from 1080p to 4K was a big part of the reason for that and the phase II/III ramp to 26,000 sheets is far more painless...

But yeah, this feels like a seedling that has as much chance of withering into a twig as it does of growing into a tree from where things stand today...

Frankly, I can't believe the AW is selling for watches are such inherently fugly devices.....they should have been gone long ago. But I suppose I take that back. There are a few Apple fan-boys I know who would buy a vial of Ebola of if came with an Apple logo on it.